The study of Manicaria began in 1791, when the German 
botanist Joseph Gaertner (1791: 468, Pl. 2) founded the 
genus on the basis of the spathe, spadix, rachilla, and flowers 
of the plant (PLare LXVII). Apparently, its trunk, foliage, 
and fruit remained largely unknown to the scientific world 
until sixty-two years later, when Wallace (1853: Plates II 
and XXVI) furnished his illustration of this “unique and 
handsome palm” (PLate LXVIII). Wallace and other field 
workers have added much information to the original de- 
scription,’ although the genus, its speciation and distribution 
remain relatively little understood even today.’ 
Standley and Steyermark (1958: 271) have published a 
concise summary of our present knowledge on the genus: 
MANIcARIA Gaertner 
Reference: Burret, Notizbl. Bot. Gart. Berlin 11: 389. 1928. 
Plants very robust, tall, or low, unarmed, the caudex stout, 
annulate, often curved or flexuous, covered with old leaf sheaths; 
leaves terminal, very large, suberect, lanceolate, acute, plicate- 
nerved, serrate at first and finally pinnatisect, the costa thick and 
stout, the petiole slender, the sheath cleft, its margins with many 
coarse fibers; spadices several, erect-spreading, tomentose, the 
branches strict, rather thick, foveolate; spathes 2, the upper fusi- 
form, terete, mucronate, fibrous, tardily rupturing; bracts subulate; 
flowers monoecious, borne in the same spadix, this inserted among 
the leaves, simply branched, the flowers immersed in pits in the 
branches, the upper ones staminate, crowded, the lower ones 
scattered, pistillate; staminate flowers oblong trigonous, the sepals 
ovate-rounded, coriaceous, with scarious margins, imbricate, the 
petals thick-coriaceous, obovate-oblong, valvate; stamens 24-30, 
the filaments filiform, connate at the base, the anthers narrowly 
linear, erect, bifid at the base, emarginate; pistillate flowers larger, 
ovoid, the perianth little enlarged after anthesis, the sepals 
rounded, their margins finally lacerate, broadly imbricate, the 
petals longer, covolute-imbricate at the base, acute and valvate 
at the apex; ovary sulcate, 3-celled, the stigmas 3, sessile; fruit 
large, globose, 1-seeded, or depressed-globose and 2-3-seeded, 
the stigmas terminal, the pericarp corticate, the cortex corky, an- 
gulate-echinate, the endocarp vitreous-crustaceous, fibrous within; 
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